Proceedings of the
National Policy Seminar on Energy for Rural
Development

By

Buti
Mogotsi

Executive
Summary

According
to the Botswana Annual Economic Report (2000) about 50.8% of the population of
Botswana resides in rural areas. The majority of the rural population depends on
biomass, mainly in the form of fuelwood to meet their energy requirements.An estimated 85.7% of the rural population use fuelwood for cooking.Only 0.03% and 1.9% of the rural households used electricity for cooking
and lighting respectively in a 1993/94 survey (HIES, 1993/94).This shows a high dependence on fuelwood, which has a very high potential
for degradation of the natural environment.

Like
other developing countries in Africa, Botswana is faced with the challenge of
providing adequate and modern energy services to its rural communities in an
effort to improve their standard of living through increased potential for
income and employment generation.The
relatively low-income levels in rural areas make the provision of modern energy
services unaffordable to most communities.Although low energy consumption is not considered to be a cause of
poverty and energy itself not a basic human need, lack of energy has been shown
to correlate closely with many poverty indicators (WEC, 1999).

Recent
literature suggests that rural households and rural-based enterprises progress
up the “energy ladder” or switch to modern fuels as incomes increase. Income
is perceived to be the most important determinant factor in the type of energy
consumed although other factors such as access and information could be equally
important.

This
seminar is the first of series of annual national policy seminars to be
conducted in countries participating in the current AFREPREN/FWD research studies.
These seminars are to provide useful platform to disseminate AFREPREN/FWD research
findings and also solicit policy makers’ views on issues national interest.
Such views are to form the basis for formulating future research issues. The
seminar attracted 26 participants involved in the various aspects of energy,
rural development and the environment. The participants were drawn from
government, parastatals, NGOs and the private sector. The seminar was held over
two days, the first day being devoted to presentations on the various energy
sub-sectors followed by group discussions and formulation of recommendations on
the second day.

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